59. 5 Things I Learned in 8 Years of Running a Commercial Cleaning Business
Starting and growing a commercial cleaning business is challenging.
When I started my cleaning business, I didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew was that I wanted to build a successful business.
In the 8 years running my cleaning business there were main highlights.
Winning my first contract, building a great team and buying my first cleaning business.
These were far outweighed by the daily challenges. Staffing, operations and being 6 weeks from closure.
Throughout all these experiences I learned some valuable lessons. I hope they make your cleaning business a success.
In today’s email:
Always Be Learning
Systemising Your Business
Don’t Undersell Your Service
Take Care of Your Team
Find a Niche
👇🏾 Listen: Interested in social cleaning? Listen to this bitesize.
THE BIG IDEA
Always Be Learning
The most important lesson.
There’s always something new to discover in the cleaning industry. It’s not as sexy as tech and finance, but innovation and new practices do happen.
The more you know, the more value you can add to your clients.
To stay ahead of the game, I read industry blogs and publications. There’s so much information available on the internet that it’s impossible for you NOT to be resourceful.
You can find the answers to almost anything you need to know on Google, ChatGPT, YouTube or Twitter.
I also attended trade shows and exhibitions.
I made some great connections and learned about changes and advancements in the industry.
I was always trying to expand my knowledge and skill to help improve the success of our business.
Josh Melton explained the importance of continous professional development on The Growth Lab podcast.
It’s one of the core values that has helped him grow Athens Cleaning into a successful seven figure cleaning business.
Have a System
It took me a couple of years to recognise the needed to systemise the business to help growth.
Standard cleaning (offices, deep cleans, builders cleans) is a simple business.
Simple businesses still need structure to scale.
Systems made sure the business continued to run without me being present.
Creating efficient processes allowed us to deliver a consistent service to clients.
There were processes for all aspects of the business, including cleaning, laundry, supervision, reporting, customer service and management.
I’ve broken down some of the systems in my ‘Operational Insight’ series of this newsletter.
When I spoke with Chris Guilfoyle on The Growth Lab podcast, he explained how taking step back from the business to put in place systems helped him scale to seven figures.
It takes time to install the right systems for your business, but the investment is worth it.
Don't Undersell Your Service
Understand the value of your cleaning service.
When I started, I would submit lowball quotes to win work.
Trouble is, low value, low margin work restricts growth. Unless you have a significant volume of work and economies of scale, you’re in a race to the bottom.
It’s tempting to undercut your competition to secure contracts. Especially in the early stages of your business.
Unfortunately, this approach is unsustainable and detrimental to your business.
It took me almost 5 years to start valuing our service properly and increase prices.
By doing so, we were able improve our service delivery and outperform the competition.
Take the category of 1 approach to your business. Differentiation yourself from the competition to justify charing a higher price.
You want clients that value quality and value instead of the cheapest option.
Take Care of Your Team
Staff are the backbone of your cleaning business.
According to Sharon Cowan, staff are more important than clients for growing your cleaning business.
I agree.
The performance of your cleaning team has a direct impact on the quality of your service. Service quality impacts client satisfaction.
Without satisfied clients, there is no cleaning business.
My cleaning business had a good team, but I could have made it better.
Investing in continous training and providing opportunities to excel would have helped.
As would offering bonuses, incentives and recognition for top performance.
Happy and motivated staff will go the extra mile to ensure client satisfaction and contribute to the success of your business.
The more success your business enjoys, the more resources you have to invest in your team. This continous cycle leads helps to grow a business with a strong core.
Sharon’s approach to building a great team is one I admire.
She invested in training and motivating staff, making them feel valued and appreciated.
As a result, she grew from a handful of staff to a full service commercial cleaning business with 120+ staff across 3 regions.
Find a Niche
Finding a niche for your cleaning business is important.
When I started, we focused on tenancy cleaning in affluent areas of North West and South West London.
By focusing on one type of cleaning, I gave the business the best chance to succeed. Over time, I understood the different challenges and requirements with tenancy cleans.
The business started becoming an expert in that niche. We started providing specialised services to property managers.
I took my professional service experience to build a reputation for quality and consistency.
It wasn’t until we got an opportunity to clean some retail stores that we expanded into commercial cleaning. A couple of years later we alsomoved into construction cleaning.
The business lost direction for a couple of years because I was trying to serve to many markets.
I was diluting my efforts, which made it harder to achieve success.
In the end, we focused on commercial cleaning and winning more contracts.
We still accepted tenancy and construction cleaning work. But our business development centred around finding more cleaning contracts.
Running a commercial cleaning business brings a unqiue set of challenges. From staffing to marketing and operations, growing a cleaning business can be a grind.
I hope these lessons help you navigate those challenges and increase your chances of success.
Content to check out
This week’s episode of The Growth Lab podcast is the second part of my interview on the Growth Hacks Experience. We chat about the role of technology in cleaning, overcoming tech barriers and the power of focus for growing your business. Listen here.
Prefer watching over listening? Check out The Growth Lab podcast on YouTube.
Need More Help?
Want to 3x revenue growth for your cleaning business in the next 12 months? Book a call.
Email me with the growth strategy for your cleaning business. The more details you provide, the more personal I can make my response.
Join The Cleaning + Property Maintenance Community and gain access to support, accountability and networking opportunities to grow your business: https://bit.ly/thecpmcommunity1
Thanks for reading!
Matt @ The Growth Lab
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